


Over and Over Again

by Covenmouse



Series: The Lion's Roar [9]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Gen, no betas we die like men, this is a very introspective work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Covenmouse/pseuds/Covenmouse
Summary: As the Monastery falls, Flayn is tasked with leading the residents to safety. However, her own fears and paranoia work an already tense situation into a riotous pitch.
Series: The Lion's Roar [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1454557
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Over and Over Again

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is best read after _Chapter Three: The Daughter of Sothis_ of [Obsidian Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20677829). It is part of an expanded AU series, with many details that differ from canon. I cannot promise it will be understandable to someone who hasn't read that series, sorry. (Though you're welcome to read regardless. You do you, boo.)

> Been a long road to follow  
> Been there and gone tomorrow  
> Without saying goodbye to yesterday  
> Are the memories I hold still valid?  
> Or have the tears deluded them?
> 
> - _Gravity_ , Yoko Kanno

There lay only darkness ahead of and behind the column of refugees. Below Cethleann’s feet spreads an infinity of stairs. Above her, where sky and sun ought be, hangs rough-hewn rock face scored by her own hands. She dug this tunnel yesterday. She dug it a millenia ago. Both statements are true, though one in sentiment and the other in fact. Neither are terribly important. But the further down this tunnel she flees, the more dangerous it is to consider the important things demanding her attention. 

With every step the human presence at her back grows less familiar. With every magic-laced pulse of her inhuman heart she fights the twin urges to turn and fight, and to lay down where she is, that she might sleep through the inevitable. Through the pain. Through eternity.

It is the grace of her mother, whose bones she clutches between white-knuckled fists, that keeps her steady; that soothes the itching of skin desperate to be scales, and of fingernails meant to be claws. She has not had claws in such a long, long time. And she cannot now. Even had she the strength, those behind her, the ones she calls ‘hers’, would not accept that form as true. Were they to see her second face they would do as their ilk has always done. She knows this, now, and wishes again for ignorance.

‘Again,’ whisper the troublesome, serious thoughts she is trying to ignore. ‘Again, they have come. Again. Again.’

They will always come. Was that not precisely as Seiros feared? So many centuries she had privately scorned the other woman. Loved her, yes, but scorned her, too, for the fear and paranoia that had driven Seiros to nearly raze the human population to the ground once before. That had seen this fortress built. That had demanded, with false politeness and barely concealed teeth, that this very tunnel be dug.

‘Insurance,’ Seiros had said those centuries ago. ‘For when they come again.’

Cethleann had swallowed her tongue and done as commanded to keep the peace, though the personal cost had been considerable. She had dug, and she slept, and when she woke she thought it would be to a world better than the one she left behind. And it was, for a time. It truly was.

There is a gentle clatter of stone behind her. Someone swears. Leather creaks, and shoes scuffle. Further back a baby wails. Before long, more children are hiccuping along as they consider joining suit. 

At her right shoulder, Ignatz leans in so that his voice is nearer to her ear than she likes; her inhumanly sharp, long ear so poorly hidden beneath her voluminous hair. Will he finally notice?

“Flayn, I’m not sure we can keep going like this.”

Cethleann’s fingers tighten upon the bones. It is a safe expression of her frustration; the humans will not see this in the dark. “I am afraid we must.”

“Someone is going to trip,” he informs her as though it hasn’t already happened. To him, it has not. How long will it take before he realizes that there is blood on these stairs? Maybe until they are out. Maybe never. There are many humans. They do not always notice when a few are lost. “Do we even know if the exit is open? These tunnels… they look ancient. The end may have collapsed.”

To her left, Raphael grunts softly in agreement. “Yeah, and no one even seemed to know they existed, so, like, it couldn’t have been inspected or anything, right?”

“The tunnel is clear. It will not collapse unless—” Unless I die, she wants to say. Or unless she wishes it. But Seiros had been right to question the structural integrity of this mountain and it’s many secrets. The cathedral was not the only portion of the construction in danger, and that was by design. If this tunnel failed, it would take a fair portion of the monastery with it. Maybe it would bury them, but it would bury their enemies as well.

“How are you so sure?”

“Because I am.” Her response is so waspish and uncharacteristic that Ignatz flinches back. The guilt is immediate and softening. Distracting, too, which is wonderful in a perverse sort of fashion. Her grip loosens and she swallows a deep breath of the stale, dusty air. “The bottom is not so far off, now. I am merely afraid that the longer we remain within the mountain, the more time our enemies have to realize the trick. If they were to find us at the bottom…”

“It would not go well,” Ignatz says softly.

“No,” she agrees, voice low and millenia-old screams ringing in her ears. “It would most certainly not.”

She thinks this will be the end of the conversation. She is unprepared when Ignatz asks, “ _You_ knew this was here, didn’t you?”

There is no safe response. Perhaps there would be—a clever twisting of the truth or a dodge of the question—were exhaustion not sapping at her bones and blanking her mind of the years spent pretending to be anyone and anything other what she is: hunter; prey; monster. 

Instead, she recalls of how many people saw her open the tunnel, Ignatz included, and simply says, “Yes.”

“How?”

“Because this monastery and its secrets have always been ours.”

Behind them, more children begin to wail. She wishes to join them. They are the same, are they not? So many of those children have already lost their homes and their people once to this nonsense. First the Western Church and their holy war, then Solon and his brood. So many dead. So many orphans. And here they go again.

 _Again_.

The darkness grows thicker around them, rife with the gathering tension. Humans fear the dark, which feels ironic to her. Their kind is so often consumed by darkness, but they fear it all the same. Or, perhaps, they fear it for that very reason. Perhaps they are not so dissimilar.

“Not far, now,” she assures Ignatz, who has remained noticeably quiet these past few minutes. Has it been minutes since they last spoke? Hours? Hard to tell. 

On her other side, Raphael remains inscrutable as stone. She had never known him very well, and couldn’t now say what his thoughts were. But Ignatz… 

Had he finally put it together? Had there been enough clues laid?

Cethleann thought so, certainly, but it was a difficult thing to be certain of when you knew the truth. To her, it was all rather obvious. But for someone who only had disorganized fragments of a greater picture, what shape would all this take for him? 

She remembers those shared moments they’d had in the library, before all this came to a head. Ignatz was sweet, and gentle, and oh-so-earnest. She had enjoyed sitting quietly with him, watching him draw and filling his head with stories.

With lies. 

Shame prickles across her skin, there and gone again; like a ghost. 

Ghosts…

Her steps falter, and the crowd behind does not stop. She stumbles, threatening to topple over on the stair and if she does—if she does—

There is already blood on the stairs.

“Flayn!” 

Ignatz reaches for her, but Raphael is quicker. He scoops her into his strong, strong arms and carries her several steps before she realizes that she’s been saved. 

“Hey, you’re OK,” Raphael says, voice echoing as the tunnel ceiling lowers dramatically. They’re nearing the bottom, now. “We’ve got you.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, though, feeling the weight of Ignatz’ gaze and the unlingering ‘I told you so’ in the air, she wonders how true their loyalty is. She has allowed others to be trampled today. It would only have served her right had they let her fall. 

Was she right? Should she have slowed this procession when she had the chance? 

If there was a time when such a thing would have been possible, it is past. She feels that, now. The mounting tension; the barely controlled panic of humans in the dark. 

They must reach the end soon. Then… then she can think of ghosts. 

“Set me down?”

“Uh, are you sure?” Raphael sounds apologetic, but his arms remain locked around her; cradling her like a bride, or a baby, to his chest. His voice lowers as much as it can as he admits, “I don’t think I can.”

He’s right. And suddenly, she fears how this will end when they reach the bottom. There is a door she will need to open. They will _have_ to stop. 

How long now? Cethleann allows her hand to dangle behind them, until her fingers brush the stone. Stone. 

Her father was made of it; made _from_ it. Her mother had been born of saltwater and foam. Cethleann, like her brother, had taken more after one than the other; he leaned toward Caduceus, and she toward Cichol. She had never been more grateful. 

This tunnel is hers, and so is the earth beyond it. She feels how close they are to the end of the stairs, and the door several yards beyond. More than that, she feels the woods beyond the mountain; feels the roots of flora and step of paws, and complete lack of human presence. There are demons out there, close enough to be troublesome, but few enough that she doesn’t believe them part of the Empire’s strange forces. This exit has not been discovered yet. That is a relief. 

But she also feels the line of humans behind them. There were many people living in the monastery, and many more who fled up the mountain before the battle began in earnest. The procession stretches back almost to the graveyard itself, where the door has not yet been sealed. That is where much of the tension she feels originates. Those at the back who imagine soldiers breathing down their necks at any moment. Whose feet spur those ahead of them ever faster. 

She cannot blame them. She feels the same fear. 

“The door is just ahead. We shall reach it shortly. Can we go ahead?”

“Sure—”

“They’re going to follow if you run,” Ignatz says quickly, catching Raphael just in time. “We need to talk to them.”

Raphael grunts in understanding, then turns his head as he raises his voice, “Hey everybody! The doors are just ahead, okay? We’re gonna stop for a second.”

As before, his voice echoes and carries. The front line begins to hesitate.

There’s a pulse, like a ripple through the crowd, as the back line doesn’t heed the warning. Raphael stumbles, and jogs forward to keep his balance. The line behind him does the same. The effect cascades through the line and everyone is jogging, running, fleeing down the stairs with more importance than before. 

This will not do. What _can_ she do? All her instincts want to scream with displeasure. Her kind would heed that. Humans will only hear a monster. 

The door is fast approaching now, and they are going too fast. Too fast. 

There’s only three things she can think to do. She could buckle the floor beneath them, force them to stop by benefit of throwing everyone to the ground upon jagged, twisted stone. There would be more blood, but most would live. That method would cost her less, in the end.

Or--Or she can save them, at the expense of her disguise, and possibly her life. 

The decision is easier than she ever thought it would be.

Cethleanne twists in Raphael’s arms, heedless of his yelling for her to stop. He tries to hold on, but she pushes away and lets herself fall. Her head smacks the ground with a painful crack, followed by a jolt through her tailbone that spikes pain through her entire body. The crack of her mother’s staff upon the stone is but a distant thought as she struggles to take a big gulping breath of air before she hits the ground again. 

She feels the soothing presence of scale and hide, of knife-like teeth and a long, whip-chord tail, seconds before the rock engulfs her. She sinks, sinks, sinks into the stone. 

Yes, she is a child of both her parents; a child of land and sea. The earth is hers, and in it she swims like a fish upon the ocean. Here, in the earth, all is muted and quiet and far less immediate. But she can still hear, through the vibrations, the trampling feet and screams as the humans are now left alone in the dark. 

Ignatz and Raphael call her name, attempting to hold against the tide of their people as they try to find her. They must have seen her transformation, she thinks. She is small, as her kind goes--very small--but… perhaps they have told themselves they did not see. They did not _want_ to see. Rather, they would think she is beneath them on the stairs. How right and wrong they are. How very much danger they are in. 

Cethleann dives ahead of the crowd, cutting through the stone at break-neck speed. It feels like a homecoming. It feels like a cage. The earth will keep her if she is not careful. It wants nothing more. 

Though part of her wants to let that happen; to lose herself in the eternal tomb where no one shall ever find her, Cethleann knows she can’t risk that. Not yet. There is one more task left to do. 

She surfaces outside the door, within the jarringly quiet forest. Dragging her claws through the ground, she works her way free of the stone, observing with muted interest the way her flesh melds back into human form once she’s reached the air. Still gulping big, sating breathes, she staggers toward the familiar cliff’s edge. 

Hastily, she brushes away moss and dirt from the faintly glowing runework. None but draconic eyes could ever see this, thankfully, but in the dark she finds it easy to trace the lines and whisper the proper incantations. With a final push of her waning power, the door unseals and opens just as the flood of humanity reaches it. They rush past like a tidal wave, sending flocks of birds into the trees in a terrible announcement of their passage. 

If Cethleann had room to care, she’d worry about the army above noticing their flight. As it is, that is a mere passing thought as she saggs against the stone. 

The time for unity is gone, by all appearances. As she watches, her vision darkening about the edges, the remnants of the monastary’s population drift apart into the night. They flee in all possible directions, and no amount of shouting from this or that knight will stop them. 

Finally, as the trickle passes, two familiar voices approach. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. She was there, then she was gone. We looked everywhere but all we found was this—”

Raphael is the first through the door, fresh and purpling bruises staining his skin, followed shortly by equally battered Ignatz whose voice breaks off as he sees the vastly dwindled population. 

Behind them, Flayn remains clinging to the stone in hopes of keeping herself upright. She tries to say something, to get their attention, when her gaze lands upon the object in his hands. The Caduceus Staff. Pieces of it, anyway. 

A low, wretched moan slips between her lips. 

The boys turn as a third figure comes stumbling out of the passage. 

“Flayn!” Cihol pulls her from the wall and into a crushing, comforting embrace. She goes without resistance, lacking the strength to fight even if she wanted to. Even if she doesn’t feel worthy of his support.

“I’m sorry,” she wails, for a million reasons. “I didn’t mean to drop her, Father, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Cichol murmurs, “It’s okay, sweetheart. She will understand. You got them out. I’m sure she understands.”

“Not all of them.”

“As many as you could.”

Somewhere in the distance is a horrible, wretched cry that echoes through the valley and rumbles through the stone. It is a cry she recognizes all too well. A hundred others echo in her head, and for a moment she is a child again, frozen, watching as her mother’s flesh boils off her bones.

Again. It has all happened again. 

“We have to go,” says Cichol.

“Go where?” asks Ignatz. 

“The only place we can.”

If the boys are perturbed at that enigmatic statement, they say nothing. But her father isn’t right. Not entirely. 

Slowly, Cichol eases his hold upon her as she pulls away. Cethleann, still shivering, forces herself to look at her at her friend and finds him staring at her with a haunted sense of understanding blooming behind those kind brown eyes. 

He’s seen so much these past few weeks--this very day--to not have earned a little understanding. Her father won’t like it, but Cethleann isn’t sure she cares about that right now. 

“We cannot leave the others,” she says, looking up into Cichol’s face.

“They will be right behind us. Byleth said she would meet us—”

“I am not talking about her. Everyone else. We hid them in the tomb before we came back up, but the Empire knows they are down there, somewhere. They will find them eventually.”

“Flayn—”

“That is  _ not _ my name,” she snaps. Her attempts to glare at him are undermined, she feels, by her wobbling as she attempts to stand up straight. Raphael steps up behind her, putting a hand to her back even as Ignatz grasps her elbow to steady her. 

Strange that they are still willing to touch her, now that they have seen.

Cichol takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it go slowly. His agitation is clear, as is his unwillingness to fight with her before so many listening ears and watching eyes. Their audience has grown these past few moments, and perhaps she is being unreasonable. 

He could be right, of course. This could be a very large mistake. It seems to Cethleann, however, that they have been doing this his and Seiros’ way long enough. It is their way which has led them to these ends. An unfair thought. Also a correct one. 

“Lend me your strength and I will get them myself,” she says, when the silence has stretched too long. 

“No.”

“Father—”

“No,” he snaps, a hint of warning rumble in his voice. He looks up, above her head to the boys standing beside her. “See her, and anyone who wishes to follow us, to the Red Canyon. She will show you the way. I will meet you.”

He pauses before turning away, then takes Assal’s Spear from his back. This he hands over to Cethleann’s trembling, exhausted grip. 

“Be more careful with him,” he says. 

The regret she sees flash across Cichol’s face, the moment the words are past his lips, does not ease the sting. Rather than acknowledge either, she nods and clutches her brother tight with one arm, and reaches her empty hand for the collection of pieces Ignatz still holds. 

The boy startles, then realizes what she’s after. With a look that says more than she cares to contemplate for now, he passes that over as well. It’s a difficult assortment to juggle, but Cethleanne manages. 

“Look, um, I don’t know what’s going on,” Raphael starts as they watch Cichol march away into the forest, “But the Red Canyon? Is that far enough?”

“It has to be,” Cethleann says. “I don’t think I can make it much further.”

She isn’t sure she can make it that far, actually. This part she doesn’t say. She waits until her father has disappeared entirely, before looking at all the people still gathered nearby.

There’s Alois, and Cyril. Gilbert, and Manuela, and Hannemon. Those five close in now that the confrontation is over, though they glance over their shoulder every so often at the open, empty tunnel. 

Shamir is still missing. Catherine went after Byleth some time ago. For that matter, Cethleann doesn’t see any of the Blue Lions other than herself and Ignatz. 

“We should go,” she says, a little unsure of when she became the leader of this motley crew, but she sees the nods all around. 

Alois rubs the back of his neck. “What about—”

Just then, running feet sound upon the stairs. The knights move in front of her, obscuring much of her vision as one more person comes running out the tunnel. 

They relax just as quickly, until Claude, looking more disheveled than anyone has ever seen, braces his hands upon his knees and says between panting breaths, “The gates have fallen. You need to move. Now.”

“Where’s Byleth?” Alois and Ignatz ask in unison.

Claude shakes his head. The sadness in his eyes is all the answer needed.

 _‘Again_ ,’ she thinks as her world begins to spin. ‘It has all happened again.’


End file.
